After 70 years of practice, Rogers, 80, gets it right

It was easy for Ed Rogers to get hooked on golf. He was 10, his family lived a block from the old Maryland Country Club

(located on Park Heights Avenue inside the city line), and he remembers sneaking out to play evenings with several friends.

Rogers' association with the game still is going strong today. Now 80, he recently won his "eighth or ninth" men's nine-hole club championship at the Suburban Club. Such is the character of the man, he chose not not to name the loser or the score. "We're good friends and neither of us played very well," he said.

"There are about 20 in our group, and we have about four or five tournaments a year," Rogers said. He was equally enthusiastic, though, about what he considered "shooting his age" four years ago, when he had a 38 for nine holes at age 76.

Rogers' family encouraged his youthful interest in the game, he became a Junior member at Suburban when he was 16, and within the next three years went to the finals of the men's club championship on two occasions.

"That's the closest I came to winning until I started playing with the nine-hole group about 10 or 12 years ago," he said.

He had started Ed Rogers, Inc., an automobile sales business in the 500 block of East 25th Street in 1947, and was actively involved until retiring several years ago, and turning the operation over to his son.

Retirement has enabled Rogers to play golf about four times a week while living here, and a couple of times a week during the six months a year he and his wife live in Pompano Beach, Fla.

"A couple of years ago, my handicap was down to a 7, but my game has deteriorated to a 10 now," he said.

World Amateur

Although there were no Maryland flight winners in the 10th annual DuPont World Amateur Handicap championships at Myrtle Beach, S.C., last week, Bill Cooper of Hunt Valley got a second in the 7.6-8.4 handicap division with a net 278, seven shots behind winner Jay Campbell of Stewartstown, Pa.; and Whitney Hungerford, of LaPlata tied for second in the 12.9-13.4 class (the winner had 273).

In older flights, Charles Johnson, Columbia, tied for fifth, 278, in 12.1-14.1; Charles Nappier, St. Charles, tied for eighth, 281, in 17.9-23.6; and Ceal Nealy, of Laurel, had 272, in a women's flight in 31.0-40.0.

Bonnie View record

David Kaplan set a non-competitive course record for the revised Smith Avenue course when he shot 7-under-par 65 last week. The round included seven birdies and ended in flourish when Kaplan eagled the 475-yard 18th hole.

Tournament time

The regional qualifying round for the national Oldsmobile Scramble tournament has attracted 40 teams, with a double-shot gun start scheduled for 8 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Tuesday at Wakefield Valley GC in Westminster.

* There are 83 entries for the Middle Atlantic Golf Association's women's amateur championship, due Wednesday and Thursday at Evergreen CC in Haymarket, Va.

* The annual golf tournament for the benefit of the Al Cesky Scholarship Fund will be held on Sept. 27, at Geneva Farm Golf Club in Street. Scholarships, based on overall achievement, are awarded to Harford County high school senior scholar-athletes.